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About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mai... (More)

About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mainly in the Bay Area with different companies. My former wife went back to medical school after we had been married a few years, and we moved into married student housing at Stanford, had our two now adult children while she was a medical student, and moved into Palo Alto when she started her Residency. Been here ever since. As my kids were going through the Palo Alto schools, I was actively involved in their activities, most notably head umpire for Palo Alto Little League and 9 years as a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, among other activities. My kids both are grown, my son teaches 5th grade locally, and my daughter, fluent in Mandarin, is working in China. I sold the business I owned and ran for 8 years in 2012, worked on the Obama campaign, and am consulting for non-profit organizations, which gives me a nice, flexible schedule. Lots of stamps in my passport, and for fun, I like live performances &emdash; theater and music - and of course the Giants! (Hide)

Its really important right now that those that oppose HSR here need to reach out and make the serious concerns we have here, known to the republican leadership in Washington. Loud and often. They need to really understand the HSR debacle that is happening here now.

Why?

Because the other states are turning down HSR money now, and the California HSR lobby is jumping all over the nationwide sentiment against HSR to try to get that additional funding pointed over here. The nationwide rejection of HSR is going to turn very UGLY very fast for us here in California unless we let the national republicans know that WE DO NOT WANT THE MONEY HERE EITHER. This is not tru HSR! This is Caltrain on steriods speed HSR, that will run through neighborhoods, through school yards, and will be forced to slow down (or devastate) through hundreds of small towns - and WE DONT AGREE. WE don't support it, they are doing it wrong. They are damaging property owners and tax payers. They are mismanaging the project on every front, they are ignoring the laws, they are lying about benefits, revenues riderships and costs, and WE DON"T WANT IT EITHER! WE have to make this known. Otherwise, Washington thinks that California is the only 'true hsr' and our HSR foamers are all too happy to try to nab all that funding that the republican governors are starting to reject elsewhere.

France and China are lobbying like crazy to get this money.
The future for CA is instead computerized traffic flow systems an variations of the Google car.
You enter your destination and the flow/queuing system takes over--we will be able to read, text etc until the system tells us to take control again.
Of course you will not be able to weave speed etc when in the system--but it will solve congestion in LA, Bay Area etc without the need to build additional freeways.
Another good thing is that we can sell these systems to China, France etc at a huge profit for American companies.
HSR is a 19c technology with lipstick---dead in the water--- as we do not need it and have better technology through software and systems engineering

I wish that the Rail Authority would restrict its efforts to securing the necessary rights-of-way for HSR, much like the way toll roads have been built along the East Coast.

Generally, those toll roads are built on public owned rights-of-way, but are built and operated by private companies for some set number of years (based on the economics), and then are turned back over to the public.

I would feel much better about this approach, because it would (1) ensure that the economic model is viable (no private company would entertain the business unless they could profit) and (2) it would ensure that the taxpayers are not on the hook for perpetual subsidies/cost overruns, etc.

Posted by Paul Losch,
a resident of ,
on Dec 3, 2010 at 12:09 pmPaul Losch is a registered user.

Hi Alex,

Nice to know you are reading my blogs from time to time.

My biggest objection to HSR is at the policy level--transportation funds are put to better use developing more local transit capabilities to get people from home to work or school, and reduce as much as possible auto trips. HSR serves far fewer travelers and does nothing to ameliorate the majority of trips, which are local.

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